Things have been crazy over the last week. To say the phone has been ringing off the hook would be inaccurate, what with it being a mobile, but there has been a lot going on. So much so that this week’s post is about me extracting myself from the Jabberwocky inbox and venturing back out into the familiar remainder of the internet for a few hours.
One of the things to precipitate forth from the sacred heart of the internet in recent weeks have been the BBC Good Food Awards, a genuine award that a lovely local blogger, Midlands Gourmet Girl, nominated us for and loads of our twitter and facebook followers have backed us up on. Nominations are now closed, so if you missed your chance I can only advise you to go out there and find another award winking smiley. After the initial shock had passed that someone we had not wheedled a vote out of wanted us to win something we began casually, carefully analysing – in no great depth – the likelihood of us being able to win. Just in passing. Thoroughly.
Short version: Good food, good customer services, locally sourced and seasonal.
These are pretty much the criteria that I think defines Street Food as a whole, with the possible exception of seasonality. In my mind the alfresco dining provided by ourselves and others is about perfecting one particular food, so you will be serving that food all year round, and if it is not something that especially lends itself to the seasons, like beef for example, then you really shouldn’t have to compromise on the product just to jam some topical ingredients in it.
The noble toastie, however, is a multifaceted old thing, and experiments have demonstrated that it lends itself happily to getting the most out of what’s available. The lovely thing about seasonal ingredients is that they are simultaneously local, fresh, tasty and cheap, making them a match made in good-value-heaven for us.
We struck a deal with Barny’s ever-understanding restaurant and got hold of a few dozen pigeon breasts, allowing us to create the magnificent Wood Pigeon, Spring Onion, Red Leicester and Red Currant Sauce toastie for a price that the public could actually enjoy. Game in general, like the epic Venison toastie from a few weeks earlier, is not something that you can buy out of season unless you are planning to ship it in from miles away, at exorbitant prices, but makes a b-e-a-utiful toasted sandwich.
It also gives us a starting point for new toastie development, one of the greatest parts of the job, where we get an ingredient in – say, asparagus (may-june) – and then play with it in different combinations until the results are better than the original. And yes, we eat a lot of toasties.
As the game season has now largely closed we’re working on a new vegetarian toastie as veggies are easier to catch. Plus you don’t have to skin and gut them. Sometimes I’m really glad I have a chef for these things, but on the other hand I’m happy to eat them, I should be happy to get my hands dirty. But I might start with root veg on that one.
It would be nice to be able to call ourselves award-winning, it being one of those long-lasting accolades that you can keep forever and wave at people around application time, but regardless of that we will keep trying to serve the best street food we can, and hope we can make toasties great again.
Leave a Reply